I’m going to stick my neck out and say that the fruits of discrimination are harder to recognize but sometimes more poisonous for the recipients of the favored side of discrimination.

The most stark examples in my life happened in Japan… both at being discriminated FOR and AGAINST. Either way, these are pretty mild examples as discrimination goes, but they made a big impact on me.

About 2 months into my teaching job in Japan, I was assigned to attend a special regional training seminar in a neighboring city with one of my Japanese colleagues. It was a full day event. We traveled by bullet train into the metropolitan area and attended a full day of workshops. Before the lunch break, all of the gaijin (non-Japanese) teachers were invited up front to collect their lunch money. The company was paying for our lunch, but just ours. There was no such invitation for the native Japanese teachers. I looked at my Japanese colleague horrified and confused. Surely I had misunderstood.

Nope. I had gotten it right.

My very limited Japanese tells me it says “Foreigners make better lovers.”

The odd thing was that the Japanese teachers seemed far less surprised and disgusted than I was. They knew the company policy and something deep down told them that we were the specialists in the company and therefore we deserved the extra perks. Old timer westerners in the meeting didn’t even seem to blink and eye. It’s just the way things were. But none of the native English speakers had done anything to earn the privilege other than to be born in an English speaking country.

I did go get my money that day, but I split it and treated my Japanese colleague to lunch amid her protests that it wasn’t necessary. I would have felt dirty having kept it to myself, but stuff like this goes on every day in all corners of the world. The thing is that I later noticed something odd among some western expats in Japan. As they continued receiving unearned favors and perks over the years they seemed to regress in social maturity to become odd and lived in an English speaking bubble. I’d speculate that being the continual recipient of unearned privileges turns humans into assholes.

On the other side of the coin, on the streets of Japan and in retail establishments I was occasionally followed by security because, being a westerner, I was profiled as a potential shoplifter. It was a minor irritation but completely unnerving to have one or two employees shadow your every move throughout a store or a mall. Again I’d done nothing to deserve the extra scrutiny but there’s something very demoralizing and unjust at being singled out like this.

Have you ever been accused of something you didn’t do? It almost makes you want to go ahead and commit the infraction because you’re being targeted for it anyway. Of course I never did shoplift but I understand that train of thought.

I can’t imagine what it must be like in this country to get pulled over for a DWB or profiled in the airport for being too middle-eastern looking. I also can’t imagine what it feels like to be a Mormon woman who desires for more meaningful contribution to the authority structure of the LDS Church only to be denied and called less faithful. I would imagine that that only creates an impulse to leave and become less faithful since that’s what they are being accused of anyway.

Likewise, LDS men have done nothing to merit their spot of privilege. From an outsider’s perspective they just look like privileged assholes – getting something by virtue of birth. I speculate that that image will only solidify as the males in authority retrench ever more strongly because the current setup is poisonous to both the men and the women. The men for being discriminated in favor of, and the women for being accused of something they aren’t in fact guilty of.

Keep in mind all you LDS women who claim not to feel discriminated against… It doesn’t really matter what you think or feel. In fact it’s common for victims of discrimination to be unaware of it. My Japanese colleagues were much more content with the status quo than I was. Their compliance neither adds nor subtracts from the fact that it was wrong and unfair of the company to pay for my lunch and not theirs.

I’m as worried for my son as I am for my daughters as they grow up and absorb the toxic effects of unearned privilege and discrimination in their mother’s LDS faith.

Put a blindfold on me and my gaydar would work quite nicely I’m sure. I can walk by a gay restaurant or bar here in town and SMELL that it’s a gay establishment by the cologne wafting out the door.

Los Angeles Gay Men's Chorus. I bet they have to fumigate the venue after each performance.

I don’t know why but I can’t stand smelling cologne, any kind of cologne, on other guys. I wouldn’t say it’s a deal breaker for me necessarily. I’m not that shallow. But it’s definitely a deal enhancer when a guy smells nice without the cologne. And by smelling nice I mean that I can’t smell anything… except maybe a faint soap or deodorant that you can only notice when you are extremely close.

I even prefer natural body smells to the nasty cologne, but then it becomes very subjective. Some men have a nice natural odor and others are kind of repulsive… not worth the risk. Just be clean.

Modesty

By modesty here, I mean it in a very general sense that includes physical modesty as well as social modest.

Rather than self respect and humility, I think modesty is driven by an odd cocktail of a low self image and a sense of cultural superiority. The modesty doctrine is not spread by people who have a centered appreciation of their own bodies and their own place in the world. It comes from shame… the sort of sense you get when you are told you need to cover your face in order to pray to God… or the idea that you shouldn’t broadcast yourself too favorably.

If there’s one thing I learned living abroad it’s that there’s no international, cross-cultural sense of modesty. It’s not like love, or not killing, in the sense that they are universal human ideals. There’s no agreement on what parts of the body should remain covered – in real life nor in art. There’s also no consensus on how much one’s own accomplishments should be announced or downplayed. In Japan, for example, bathing nude in local baths or hot springs was a custom but they wouldn’t say a positive thing about themselves if their life depended upon it. The social modesty was taken to the extreme in that I’ve seen mothers insult their own children in public, but nudity had been traditionally OK until the western modesty traditions came along.

I just don’t see the traditional American style of modesty as a good thing. Modesty includes complying with boundaries that someone else set. Boundaries are good but they should be self-imposed.

Gay men calling me “Girl”

I think this sort of things feeds into society’s misunderstanding of homosexuality. It makes me feel the same as when the playground bullies called me a sissy. I understand that sometimes owning an insult allows you to take over the power of it, but it’s just not a term I want to own.

Old Ladies

I don’t find Betty White funny. And why The Golden Girls became such a gay icon in the first place is completely lost on me.

I don’t know if it’s repressed anger at my mother (I don’t really think I have any) but standing behind an old lady in line at the grocery store while she fumbles in her purse drives me crazy! I know, I know… of all the demographics that should instill peace, calmness and understanding in me it should be old ladies.

Nuance

I don’t get hints very well. You pretty much have spell it out for me if you want to flirt with me or if you want to dump me.

Nuances in other cultures almost always escape me as well. I felt much more at home in Brazil where they’d give you a nickname based on what they really thought of you. I was “Elder Broomstick” on my mission because I was incredibly skinny at the time. If I had a bad acne flare-up someone was sure to point it out to me that day. It didn’t always thrill me to hear it by any means but there is a bit of comfort in knowing that others aren’t hiding anything from you.

The nuance that existed in Japan completely escaped me. America lies somewhere in the middle and I still don’t do very well with it here.

I’ve been fortunate enough to live in some of the most varied and interesting places in the world.

San Diego

New York City

Sao Paulo, Brazil

Provo, Utah

Washington, D.C.

Kakegawa, Shizuoka, Japan

Palm Springs

By “live”, I mean I’ve stayed and worked for more than a 2 week vacation; I’ve bought groceries and paid rent for a period of time. I’ve actively attended the Mormon church and held a calling in every location except Palm Springs where I’ve only lived as an apostate. Most of these places I’d love to return to and experience as a normal person would, as a former Mormon I mean. What would I do differently the next time around?

I’d comfortably exchange the customary local greeting of a kiss from whomever it was offered.

I’d graciously accept a warm cup of green tea in Japan.

I’d spend a humid east coast summer in DC in tank tops and shorts without an unnecessary layer of undergarments.

I’d spend my Sundays as an adult on beaches and in museums rather than inside a bland corporately decorated chapel or a cinderblock-lined classroom rehashing the same ideas I learned as an 11 year old.

I’d go out dancing really late on Saturday night listening to live, local music with people who enjoy the same tastes as I do rather than in a contrived singles dance held on an indoor basketball court.

I’d enjoy the breathtaking Utah outdoors on Sundays when it’s probably less crowded.

I’d accept a glass of wine with dinner from my host rather than pretend to be satisfied with my water or juice .

I’d buy a new local friend a drink.

I’d sing MUCH better Karaoke in Japan after a drink or two.

I’d have 2 full weekend days to explore, see, taste and otherwise experience these places.

I’d experience irreverent theatre and art in New York City that I avoided the first time around.

I’d enter into personal and intimate relationships with others I am drawn to without the fear that my so-called “standards” would be an issue. Safely of course.

I’d volunteer my time to a local cause that I really believed in, rather than feeling self –satisfied that I was already giving enough by fulfilling a time-consuming church calling that I didn’t truly want or enjoy in the first place.

I’d go to politically charged parties in DC and discuss issues that I disagree with and not have the certainty that I’m right.

I’m grateful for my time and past experiences in these places even the exclusively Mormon ones. I just look forward to new, more well-rounded and deeper life experiences wherever life takes me.

Like this:

I lived for a year in Japan. No, it’s not where I served a Mormon mission. I did that in Brazil. Upon graduating from BYU I took a job teaching English in Japan for a year. It was a wonderful time in my life and my heart was devastated upon learning of the recent tragedy there.

Fortunately, the area where I lived and worked was outside the area of devastation and I don’t know anyone killed or wounded. While my time in Japan preceded my eventual exit from Mormonism, I do believe it was some of the lessons I learned there that helped me a decade later.

The one friend in Japan with whom I still communicate is a Japanese-Brazilian. Yes, she looks Japanese but grew up in Brazil so her culture and mannerisms are more Brazilian. She is married to another nisei and raising her family in Japan. Of course there’s a Mormon connection to our meeting.

Ever the faithful Mormon boy, I hooked up with the Mormon church soon after arriving in Japan. I found three other “gaijin” in the local ward: Two Americans and a New Zealander. One of the Americans was a returned missionary who had served in Japan and later returned for work. They held their own Sunday School class in English and on the first day I noticed three more Japanese folks who had joined us. I questioned what they were doing with us and the former missionary told me they were actually Brazilians, Nisei – or second generation Japanese. And they didn’t speak Japanese OR English but they preferred spending time with the “gaijin.”

Apparently early in the 20th century a large number of Japanese folks made their way to Brazil to work on the coffee plantations there. In fact the largest number of Japanese outside Japan actually live in Brazil. In the late 1980’s many of the descendants of the Japanese began to find their way back to Japan and by the time I got there there was a sizable population in the very area I unknowingly went to live. Most of them couldn’t speak Japanese and so they were as “gaijin” as I was.

So on that particular Sunday when I turned and introduced myself in Portuguese the Brazilians and I became instant friends. For the next year our little band of “gaijin” were inseparable. Our lives were experienced in Japanese which was then translated to me in English; whereupon I transferred the information into Portuguese. Sometimes our real life game of telephone traveled in the opposite direction but I was always in the middle.

These were my Mormon “gaijin” friends on the weekends. During the week, my work colleagues, my gym friends and neighbors were full-blooded Japanese. To them I was an oddity and that fact stemmed as much from being Mormon as it did from being American. The general consensus was confusion that an intelligent, kind person could believe in a god let alone the Christian one. My predecessor at the school had been a “born again”christian from the mid-west who had similarly baffled the local folks. As they bombarded me with questions to explain her previous and supposedly christian behavior as well as my own Mormon-ish stuff, they indicated politely that my version of god seemed only slightly less implausible.

I learned a lot from the Japanese, some that probably helped in my later re-evaluation of my religion and some that just made it a great life experience:

Unanimity rarely indicates consensus

Japanese business practices are held up as models of consensus and collaborative groups. But my experience working there showed me another side to that coin. At the school where I worked decisions were always brought up for group discussion. The impression is that everyone has a voice but nothing could be further from the truth. More often than not, the leadership had already made their decision and this exercise was merely a tool to arm-wrestle everyone into agreeing (kind of like the sustaining of church callings that goes on at Sacrament Meeting each Sunday).

When a vote was finally taken, it was always clear how the leader expected the vote to go… and it always did. I think of this every time I hear the LDS leadership claim that highest church councils only take action once decisions are unanimous. It tells me, however, that there’s more likely a lot of political bullying and strong-arming going on in the background. My suspicions were later confirmed when I read D Michael Quinn’s book, “The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power”

God is unnecessary for courtesy, respect and a cohesive community

I witnessed kindness, honesty and respect among avowed atheists. Outside the Mormon ward I attended everyone else I knew were comfortably atheists. I was welcomed into people’s homes, shown kindness and saw generous acts of courtesy among each other. I was once on a tourist bus that was flagged down by a taxi driver who had one of our passenger’s purse. He went to extreme efforts to chase us down and return it – something westerners would lazily classify as a “christian act”.

Propaganda is everywhere and it works

I was amazed when I learned the Japanese perspective on Pearl Harbor. During class discussions, my students were innocently and naively confused at the kind of human aggression that would lead to a decision to bomb like we did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They’d never heard of Pearl Harbor. Seriously!

My English lessons were often social discussions in the context of a conversation class. Almost invariably my young students bristled against the constraints of the controlling culture and some even rebelled. But by the time anyone I knew reached adulthood they became an active participant of the prevailing culture rather than the mavericks they swore they’d be.

Watching this phenomenon reminds me of the numerous family and friends who choose to stick with Mormonism, their prevailing culture, no questions asked regardless of any facts or experiences they might pass through. Leaving the culture of your birth is just too hard and too stressful that people rarely do it.

Sometimes asking “why?” just makes you an obstinate pest

When you are thrown into such a foreign culture you want to understand it at every level. At least I did. I tend to be a very inquisitive person anyway, but in Japan that was only tolerated so much.I know my boss tired of all my inquiries quite early on as they were seen as questioning her authority. Later that same intolerance for questions and thinking outside the predetermined box led to the demise of my marriage. My ex wife never questioned.

Some of life’s funniest experiences revolve around piss and poo

Ever use a traditional Japanese toilet? We had one at the school where I worked. When I was asked at my first teachers meeting if there was anything I needed to be more comfortable I replied, “Yes, I could use some handle-bars on the wall in front of the toilet!”

Later on I was corrected because I wasn’t aware of the custom of switching slippers at the door to the bathroom. You don’t wear your regular slippers in the bathroom. You transfer into bathroom slippers. Who knew? The next day I became the laughing stock of the school when I carefully remembered to switch into the bathroom slippers… but forgot to switch back and ended up cluelessly walking all over the school with the plastic toilet slippers on.

When I consider at the highest level the elements of their Mother’s faith that I hope my kids don’t buy into, I think that the religious shame is at the top of my list.

I should probably do some research on the psychological details of shame before I go spouting off, but just know that this is my personal experience only. The shame that I experienced while growing up in the Mormon church was nothing less than spiritual abuse and brainwashing.

Are shame and guilt learned characteristics or are they universal character traits of being human?

I lived in Japan for a year just after graduating from college. I learned a whole new set of values in their culture and initially found it quite charming. I was amazed that a mostly atheistic population could be so honest, well-behaved and socially generous. I learned, however, that a lot of cultural norms were held in place by the powerful notion of shame. I don’t think the idea exactly translates perfectly and I forget the actual Japanese word for it, but the very basic concept is that some things are “bad” and therefore not done because how it will make the individual and his family look. Some of the very same behaviors that would be so shameful in public were not seen as very “bad” in and of themselves…as long as you didn’t get caught.

I’d distinguish between “guilt” and “shame” by designating shame as being how you feel in relation to others when you’ve done something “bad”. Guilt on the other hand is what you feel when you break a universal moral code. I feel shame when I get caught in a lie. I feel guilty when I lie and it hurts someone whether anyone knows about the lie or not.

I learned growing up that God Himself was displeased with the very same things that the Mormon leaders were displeased with and therefore if Mormons said XYZ was “bad” then it was a universal truth. I felt “guilt” for a whole lot of Mormon minutiae. I used to joke that I had an overactive conscience. I’d apologize and “repent” for EVERYTHING.

But when I reflect on my actual feelings and behaviors, I now recognize most of those guilty feelings as really just shame for the Mormon God seeing my petty violation of His moral standards. They weren’t universal “bad” behaviors at all. I just felt embarrassed that God saw all my sins.

In that sense I don’t think there’s much difference between Japanese shame and Christian guilt. It’s just that the Christian concept adds one more “all-seeing-eye” to the mix and therefore even those behaviors that do no intrinsic harm to the well-being of self or others are shame-inducing when they violate one’s concept of what your particular brand of God likes to see.

I do believe there are universal moral violations that cause anyone to feel guilt.

But when I finally left the Mormon church it was startling to recognize how many colloquial sins no longer produced any shame in me…even when others knew. I could skip church, go swimming on Sunday, drink coffee and take my boyfriend into a Mormon church with me without the slightest hesitation that I was doing something “wrong”.

I still can’t lie or do anything else which violates a universal moral sense that I shouldn’t do anything to interfere with the well-being of myself or others. In other words, the Golden Rule seems to be the measuring device for my inner sense of right and wrong and I have to say it’s a whole lot easier and more peaceful this way.

I think this Mormon “shame” was such a big part of my life as a young man that I’d do anything for my kids not to have to experience it. The shame of being “gay” is only part of my experience and whether my kids are homosexual or not there’s no escaping the Mormon shame that who you are is not good enough.

I want for my children the message that who they are is a gift and that their inner voice alone is good enough to find happiness, peace and a sense of well-being. I believe it is bullying and abusive to tell someone that who they are is inadequate. But isn’t that the essential message of Christianity? You need help to be the best person that you can be? Mormonism takes that concept and repackages it with unique flair.

Nobody is watching us . There’s enough reason in this world to do good without an imaginary friend hovering over, recommending and recording each move of ours. My children are sincere, honest and talented human beings. As they grow, I see them increasingly second-guessing themselves and trying to correlate their life experiences with the Mormon God’s approval checklist and it is painful to watch.